Born To Die
by AfterTheFall
Summary: Really, I have an unnatural attraction to Snape-angst. Reflective and all that..


**Born to Die**

**Summary: **Really, I have an unnatural attraction to Snape-angst. Reflective and all that..

* * *

_Opened up my eyes  
__Release me  
_

_I can't believe  
This is happening to me  
Born to live but sworn to die  
My body is warm, my fingers are cold  
__I think they buried me alive  
__I might have found, lost my soul  
__As the pages of my life unfold_  
  
-- Sevendust, 'Born to Die'.

Some people are born destructive and violent. Others become that type of person as a result of their upbringing. And sometimes, the reason for the need to wreak havoc and destroy everything around them, to push people away until they are completely and utterly alone in this world, is lost in the tangled roots of a turbulent and ugly childhood, so nobody ever knows if the urge was inbred or induced.

He knows he falls into the last category. He has spent many hours, days, months, years studying his compulsion to manipulate and use others, his need to cause others pain, trying to discover when it all started, when he became so callous and indifferent towards other human beings. But he knows, he has always been this way, this is his way of forcing others to feel his own pain. His upbringing did nothing to prevent it, it helped turn him into a shell of a person, whose only joy is derived from the agony of others.

His family taught him to remove himself from any type of human emotion to the point where he doesn't feel guilt or remorse, happiness or anger. By age ten, he was naught but a shell. A body walking numbly through life, until the day he died. Emotion, his mother had told him, would cloud him; it would only serve to limit his possibilities.

At eleven, he believed every word his mother would beat into him. _Emotion is weak. You are nothing. You exist to serve others. You are nobody. _

The sorting had been interesting; the ragged old hat had sat on his head for a good 5 minutes before delivering it decision. Unlike other children who took a while to sort, the reason for the delay was not that his qualities overlapped too much, but rather, there was simply nothing to sort. The tattered hat had reached deep into his mind, searching for something _anything_ that would indicate where he would belong. There was no indication of bravery, or loyalty that would have saw him enter Griffindor or Hufflepuff. No ambition that would have led to Slytherin, or thirst for knowledge of a Ravenclaw. There was simply nothing.

It had, of cause, eventually decided on Slytherin. The hat had dug deep within his subconscious, and it found a tiny spark that had not been quashed. A tiny pilot light that still burned, although only just, of ambition, of a need to prove that he was more that he himself believed. But buried so deep it was, wavering under years of psychological abuse, of being told he was nothing and nobody, of being forced to slaughter every emotion he ever felt to simply survive, the hat doubted the small boy was even aware it was still there.

_Slytherin,_ the hat told him, _will teach you well. Slytherin will save you._

Ironically, that house of perceived evil had saved him. It was his house that had turned him, if only a little. That horrible, evil house below the school, kept away from the 'good' houses that had offered him redemption. They taught him it was emotion that was our driving force. Nobody would ever believe that Slytherin had taught him to feel, the seemingly heartless house has taught him how to be human.

Yet, his lack of remorse and guilt lingered. He could be coerced by some of shady characters in the older years into causing pain to one of their house rivals, and he would feel nothing, no matter how much he would hurt others.

During his second year, he had thrown one of his own rivals, a Griffindor, into the lake near the outskirts of the school grounds. The young Griffindor had struggled to the surface, trying to catch his breath. The Slytherin stared at him, his eyes devoid of any emotion, his wand pointed directly at his rival who was beginning to swim back to the shore. With a quick flick of his wrist, the Griffindor found himself under the water again. Only this time, he was unable to resurface. He let up the terrified boy, only to repeat the process again.

A feeling of perverse joy flooded him, not because he was all but killing his peer, but simply because in that game, he was, for once, the one with the power. And he liked it.

_He felt his wand ripped out of his hand, and the body of the boy lifted out of the water and lay gently down on the bank. A figure rushed past him, picking him the unmoving body and rushing back to the castle. He turned and watched a flash if purple robes flashing in the distance, before sitting down under the tree, idly wondering what would be served for dinner that night._

_The headmaster had returned to the same stop half an hour later, after he'd been assured by Poppy that young Remus Lupin would be Ok, but not before wiping his memory of what had occurred. That was something a twelve-year-old did not deserve to remember._

_The young Slytherin was still sat under the tree, his face vacant, as usual. _

"_Headmaster" the boy didn't turn to face Albus as he addressed him._

"_Mr Snape" came the unusually cold response from Dumbledore. Receiving no response from his young charge, he moved to sit next to him. He searched Severus' face for anything resembling remorse, but found nothing. His lack of any emotion scared him than anything. "Do you understand what you have done?"_

"_Yes" he replied, breaking the twig he held in his hands in half._

_Dumbledore placed his hands over Snape's, preventing him from breaking it further, "Then why did you do it?"_

_Severus shrugged, and mumbled a non-committal reply. _

"_If something is happening, Severus, the only way I can help is if you tell me" Still, he received no response for his efforts. _

_Albus gently held the boys' chin, forcing him to look at his headmaster, and these empty, soulless expressed more to Albus than his words ever would. This child was dieing inside and nobody noticed, much less knew how to save him. _

"_You need to tell me why this happened, or I will be forced to take action, Severus. Expulsion being the probable course"_

"_Why? Why would I be expelled for this?" he asked instantly._

"_You almost killed one of your fellow students, Severus. You understand that, don't you?"_

"_But he was making fun of me" replied Severus, confusion most evident._

"_That is no excuse, Mr Snape, to hold Mr Lupin under the water until he almost drowns." Albus didn't mean to snap, but he couldn't help it, not working with the twisted logic of this young man._

"_My mother does it to me for much less, what makes this any different?" the boy snapped back in anger, before realising what he was saying. _

_Albus was silent for what seemed an age, as Severus realised what had just left his mouth. "She was right...stupid emotion...my stupid anger...I'm nothing..." Dumbledore heard Snape mutter to himself, before the young boy swung back and hit his head against the tree. Hard. He went forward again, but Dumbledore caught him before his head could collide with the thick tree trunk again. _

He wasn't expelled for the incident at the lake, just as Sirius wouldn't be expelled for the Shrieking Shack either. But it did signify a turning point for him. Slytherin had taught him how to feel again, Dumbledore taught him what it meant to have someone care for you unconditionally.

Severus himself had now discovered that tiny spark of ambition the Sorting Hat had discovered on his first night at Hogwarts. He pulled it to the surface and let it grow, and his ambition to prove himself more than the nobody had be been proclaimed as when he was a child grew with it. He found himself moving up in his classes as his marks improved, and he found himself proud of that. He had never felt proud in his life, nor had he had someone congratulate him on anything. The day Dumbledore had said he was proud if him, was the first time in his life he felt truly _happy_. The first time he really smiled.

That man was too forgiving, and for some reason, he hated him for that. He gave him every chance in the world and them some, and yet he still managed to screw everything up. He turned to the likes of the Malfoys and the Lestranges to further himself. And they gave it to him – free passage into the inner circle of the Dark Lord. They played on his insecurities; they allowed him everything he desired – Power. Knowledge. Belonging.

The House that saved him destroyed him all over again.

But he helped, and he knew it. His own need to have power of others always existed within him; they simply offered an outlet for it. He need to cause others pain, and lack of a conscience certainly helped, allowed him to do the Dark Lord's bidding without a second thought.

But somewhere, sometime, his conscience came back to haunt him ten fold. The faces of those he'd hurt, of those he'd killed, they never left him. The pain his Lord caused him.

He was living the same life he was before he entered Hogwarts.

And right now, he just wanted it all to end. His arms covered in his self-inflicted wounds, trying to end his sorry existence but too much of a coward to see it through.

He stands out the overbearing gates to the grounds of Hogwarts, fighting an internal battle as to enter the school or not.

He turns to leave, fear overpowering him, when a hand on his shoulder stops him. Albus, who seemingly appeared out of nowhere, stands there, a sad smile dancing across his features. Severus clenches his fists, still fighting the urge to run away. _Run away, like you always do. You're nothing. Worthless. _

Albus wastes no more time, and embraces the trembling young man in front of him, "I knew you'd come back, my boy" he whispers as Severus cries into Dumbledore's robes, clinging to the man he saw as a father like a life line.

_He was only nineteen._

* * *

Really. I have to bloody stop written one-shot Snape angst. It's getting old ;) Though, please review!


End file.
